Mining Environmental Accidents, Pollution, Tailing Dams and Abandoned Mines – Page 15

Another smoggy Sunday in the town with factories owned by Russia’s richest man – by Thomas Nilsen (The Barents Observer – October 4, 2020)

October 5, 2020

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

People driving the Kola highway have seen it before. Like in late July when kilometers and kilometers of the nature west of the nickel and copper smelters were covered by smog containing sulfur dioxide and heavy metals.

A week later, the leaves on the few still-alive trees in the lunar landscape started to brown. On Sunday, October 4th, the sulfur gasses were again blowing over the Arctic landscape, a video posted by Navalny’s office in Murmansk shows.

After Nornickel closed its nickel refining factory in Norilsk a few years ago, all refining now takes place in Monchegorsk, a two hours’ drive south of Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula.

Tesla to meet with Indigenous activists as it plots future supply chain – by Jacob Holzman (SP Global – September 30, 2020)

October 1, 2020

https://www.spglobal.com/

Tesla Inc. will meet with a network of Russian Indigenous activists campaigning for the electric vehicle company to boycott nickel supplied by PJSC Norilsk Nickel Co., the world’s largest producer of high-grade nickel, according to one of the activists involved with the campaign.

Pavel Sulyandziga, president of Indigenous rights group Batani Foundation, told S&P Global Market Intelligence through an interpreter that advocates with the boycott campaign are scheduled to speak with Tesla representatives involved with corporate social responsibility on Oct. 7.

Sulyandziga said the group plans to reiterate a request made in an open letter released in early August that Tesla not engage with Norilsk Nickel, also known as NorNickel, which is facing billions in damages over major oil spills in the Arctic.

3 decommissioned uranium mines near Bancroft, Ont. deemed protected, no health impacts: study – by Greg Davis (Global News – September 29, 2020)

October 1, 2020

https://globalnews.ca/

A study says three decommissioned uranium sites near Bancroft, Ont., are protected and pose no health impacts on residents.

In 2019 the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) launched an independent environmental monitoring program in the Bancroft area, focusing on the Dyno, Madawaska and Bicroft decommissioned uranium mine sites. Each site processed low-grad uranium ore which left behind tailings — waste generated by the mining and milling of uranium ore.

The commission is licensed to manage the three sites, which are under long-term monitoring and maintenance. The three sites were remediated in the 1980s and 1990s.

Attawapiskat First Nation challenges DeBeers’ proposal for third landfill site (CBC News Sudbury – October 1, 2020)

October 1, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

DeBeers Canada is decommissioning the Victor Diamond Mine

Attawapiskat First Nation says it’s challenging the construction of another proposed landfill site near the community.

The site would be located about 90 kilometers west of the community and would process demolition waste from the Victor Diamond Mine, which is being decommissioned. It would be the third landfill managed by DeBeers Canada, the company that owns and operates the mine.

Attawapiskat has hired environmental consultant Don Richardson who says the 100,000 cubic metre landfill would be quite large. “The total amount of concrete of the CN Tower is probably about 45,000 cubic metres,” said Richardson. “So you could stick two CN Towers in this facility. It’s not a small landfill.”

A brutal war and rivers poisoned with every rainfall: how one mine destroyed an island – by Matthew G. Allen (The Conversation – September 30, 2020)

October 1, 2020

https://theconversation.com/

Matthew G. Allen is a Professor of Development Studies at The University of the South Pacific.

This week, 156 people from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea, petitioned the Australian government to investigate Rio Tinto over a copper mine that devastated their homeland.

In 1988, disputes around the notorious Panguna mine sparked a lengthy civil war in Bougainville, leading to the deaths of up to 20,000 people. The war is long over and the mine has been closed for 30 years, but its brutal legacy continues.

When I conducted research in Bougainville in 2015, I estimated the deposit of the mine’s waste rock (tailings) downstream from the mine to be at least a kilometre wide at its greatest point. Local residents informed me it was tens of metres deep in places.

How Nornickel Became the Arctic’s Biggest Polluter (VTimes/Moscow Times – September 28, 2020)

September 30, 2020

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/

One Russian company releases more sulfur dioxide into the air than the whole of the U.S.

Ecologists often joke that Europe owes its clean skies to the dirty sky of Norilsk — and there’s more than a shred of truth in this assertion.

The Nornickel mining and metallurgical company supplies metals to 37 countries, where they are used in the production of electric cars, electricity stations and solar panels.

But in the process of extracting all these environmentally valuable metals, Nornickel systemically pollutes the surrounding nature with sulfur dioxide (SO2). Toxic in high doses, this gas causes choking, coughing, pulmonary edema, and (according to the WHO) increases the frequency of respiratory tract diseases.

Rio Tinto hit with human rights claims over Bougainville mine (Agence France-Presse/Jakarta Post – September 29, 2020)

September 29, 2020

https://www.thejakartapost.com/

Rio Tinto is facing accusations it “side-stepped” responsibility to clean up poisonous waste from a closed mine on Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville island in a complaint filed Tuesday in Australia.

The complaint, lodged with Australian authorities by the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre on behalf of more than 150 Bougainvilleans, heaps more pressure on the mining giant already under public attack for blowing up sacred Aboriginal sites.

It alleges the former Panguna copper and gold mine, which was at the center of a decade-long civil war in PNG, continues to leak waste into rivers more than three decades after it was shuttered.

Electric Vehicles: The Dirty Nickel Problem – by Cliff Rice (Clean Technica – September 27, 2020)

September 28, 2020

https://cleantechnica.com/

“Certainly, electric vehicle manufactures cannot live up to their
professed good intentions of using “environmentally friendly”
nickel if that nickel comes from laterite deposits.”

Electric vehicles are only a small part of the world vehicle market, but this is expected to change. While there are several competing battery chemistries which are likely to be used in this emerging market, many of them contain significant amounts of nickel.

This is a problem, and to understand why it is a problem, we need to understand the basics of where nickel comes from. It gets a bit complicated.

Nickel is mined from two types of deposits — sulphide and laterite. Sulphide nickel occurs in hard rock that has formed from crystallization of magma with the proper conditions and chemistry.

The Sudbury model: How one of the world’s major polluters went green – by Sara Miller Llana (The Christian Science Monitor – September 24, 2020)

September 25, 2020

https://www.csmonitor.com/

When the Superstack was constructed in 1972, it was the tallest structure in Canada – and the tallest smokestack in the world. At 1,250 feet, it’s visible from every vantage point in the area. It can be seen from the bustling streets of downtown to the quiet cul-de-sacs of residential neighborhoods. It looms large in the distance from highways that feed into a city that is home to one of the largest mining complexes in the world.

Built by Canadian company Inco before it was purchased by Vale, the Superstack has long stood as a reminder of the environmental devastation that mining wrought here. But this year the chimney is being fully decommissioned.

Residents of Sudbury harbor mixed feelings about the Superstack. Some see it as a memorial to their rise as a center of nickel and copper mining globally. Others see it simply as a familiar landmark that signals they are home. Gisele Lavigne lives in the Copper Cliff neighborhood at the Superstack’s base.

OPINION: New global standard on mine tailings management won’t prevent another Brumadinho – by Doug Morrison (Northern Ontario Business – September 22, 2020)

September 22, 2020

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Doug Morrison is the president-CEO of the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) in Sudbury.

The mining industry’s ingrained culture of safety needs similar approach in dealing with mine waste solutions

In August, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) launched what it calls its new ‘Global Industry Standard on Mine Tailings,’ some 18 months after almost 300 people were killed by the catastrophic failure of a Vale iron ore tailings dam at Brumadinho in Brazil.

It is unlikely to be successful. The ICMM report is designed to improve operational control of the existing mine tailings management process and so reduce the consequences of another catastrophic failure.

Its members can take up to five years to implement the ‘Standard’ voluntarily, and the ICMM can only encourage non-member mines to adopt it.

New technology to help clean and recycle Canada’s mining wastewater (Canadian Mining Journal – September 21, 2020)

September 22, 2020

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

As Canada looks to responsibly develop its mining and minerals industry as part of its economic recovery plan from the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has announced a $4.5-million investment in E2Metrix, to help mining operations recycle wastewater and operate more sustainably; Quebec-headquartered E2Metrix specializes in the treatment of wastewater.

Wastewater for mining operations can often contain pollutants and toxic chemicals. E2Metrix’s ECOTHOR technology aims to clean and separate contaminants, such as ammonia and heavy metals, from the wastewater.

According to the government’s release, this process is a more effective, energy-efficient and affordable way to reuse and recycle wastewater from mining operations and is expected to help companies improve water efficiency and reduce their impacts on fresh water.

Russian Indigenous communities are begging Tesla not to get its nickel from this major polluter – by Maddie Stone (Grist.org – September 21, 2020)

September 21, 2020

https://grist.org/

Every year in August and September, the people of Ust’-Avam, a remote indigenous community located in the Taimyr region of the Russian Arctic, toss nets into the Avam River to catch tugunok fish, an important traditional food.

This year, the community stopped fishing early, around the start of the month. There were no tugunok to be found. Nor could locals find the fish at other common sites along the river basin fed by Lake Pyasino, which lies just a few miles north of the industrial city of Norilsk.

Gennady Shchukin, a member of the Dolgan ethnic group, has little doubt about the culprit: In late May, a reserve fuel tank at a power plant near Norilsk burst open, flooding local waterways with an estimated 23,000 tons of diesel oil.

Two new smaller stacks are ready, decommissioning of Sudbury’s Superstack about to begin – by Molly Frommer (CTV News Northern Ontario – September 10, 2020)

September 15, 2020

https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/

SUDBURY — Two new, 450-foot stacks are now fully installed and ready to replace the famous Superstack that has been in Sudbury for decades.

The $450 million project began in 2014, and managers with Vale say it was a companion effort to the Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction Project (AER).

“That Clean AER project was run in parallel to the service facilities upgrade,” said Darryl Cooke, Vale surface project and studies senior manager. “That was a billion-dollar project for atmospheric emissions reduction.”

Papua New Guinea opposition grows to dumping mine waste at sea (New Zealand Herald – September 9, 2020)

September 9, 2020

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/

Opposition to the disposal of mining waste in the ocean is growing in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe province.

Companies behind the proposed Wafi-Golpu gold and copper mine near Lae plan to pump mine tailings into the Huon Gulf, a process they call Deep Sea Tailings Displacement (DSTD).

The former governor of Papua New Guinea’s Morobe province, Keely Naru, is the latest to wade into the debate, telling the Post Courier the mining companies behind the Wafi-Golpu Joint Venture, Harmony of South Africa and Newcrest from Australia, should be required to ship the tailings back to their countries of origin.

Saami Council urges Tesla to refrain from buying NorNickel metals – by Thomas Nilsen (The Barents Observer – Septmeber 8, 2020)

September 9, 2020

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

“Dear Mr. Elon Musk,” starts the letter from the indigenous peoples in northern Russia.

“We are respectfully requesting that you DO NOT BUY nickel, copper and other products from the Russian mining company NorNickel until the following is implemented,” the letter continues and then lists a number of environmental requirements to be fulfilled on the Taimyr- and Kola Peninsulas.

The campaign that started in northern Russia is now spreading in social media by other indigenous peoples communities globally under the hashtag #AnswerUsElonMusk.

The Saami Council this week voiced a strong support to the campaign.